


Stars Rising (these wicked winding streets)

by oh_fudgecakes



Category: Tokyo Babylon, X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, But it's okay, Fix-It of Sorts, He gets better, I think?, M/M, Mental Instability, Post-Canon, Post-Final Day, Resurrection, a young resurrected seishirou with no memories of the final day, an angstmuffin sakurazukamori!subaru, he's not the most mentally stable, much action, much drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:32:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7418125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_fudgecakes/pseuds/oh_fudgecakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sakurazukamori lifts the cigarette back to his lips. The end glows red again in the night, before the hand holding it lowers. A moment later, smoke begins to curl upwards in the flickering lamplight.</p><p>“It’s you,” he says, voice hoarse from disuse, “I recognised your magic.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue/one

0.

A schoolgirl stands under a flashing sign by a darkened junction, white uniform tainted neon by the LED lights. Across the gleaming asphalt, a salaryman emerges from a bar, stares at the pale strip of thigh between black thigh-highs and hiked-up skirt. He crosses the road. She giggles, and they vanish into the next alley. Just a few meters down, a black car pulls over by a woman in a synthetic fur-lined jacket and a red dress that stops right at the tempting swell of her rump. Another man slips a ring into his pocket and steps into one of the establishments.

Window rolled all the way down and fingers tapping against the chrome door, a driver cruises slowly down the crowded streets, trailing a winding stream of cigarette smoke. He is waiting for a woman to catch his eye. There are male escorts lining the streets, turning sultry, darkly lined eyes to him. A couple of scantily clad women call to him from the sidewalk, drawn—no doubt— by his expensive taste in cars. One of them stands out to him from ahead, clad in a dress that dips down to her belly button, but a man grabs her by the waist and whispers in her ear. She laughs, and they are gone in a second.

The driver makes a turn down a lonelier stretch. He'll cut through the quieter area to get to that Soapland some minutes away, the one with the fiery-eyed redhead. He'd been looking for something a little different today, something to spice up his monotonous routine. A little bit of a struggle, maybe. But he has money to spare, and he doesn't think she'll protest the visit of a regular customer. Especially not one of his position and standing.

The crowd thins as he turns the next corner. Two streets down from his destination, he catches a flicker of black up ahead. From the shadows of a narrow alley a willowy figure emerges, all in black. It takes him a moment to discern the stranger as male. He is so startlingly slight, and dressed all in black, he appears little more than a shadow in the darkness. The man turns his face up towards the passing car— _his heart skips a beat_ — and he finds himself compelled to pull up next to the stranger.

The stranger is a photograph of desaturated extremes. His rain-damp hair is black, black as the night, black as the fabric of his clothes: black coat and black jeans vanishing into black boots. Against the faint neon lights lining the street, this stranger's reflection is more shadow than person in the fallen rainwater. His upturned face gleams starkly amidst the ebony, so marble-pale it could have been carved of ivory.

But it is not this that had caught the driver's eye.

No.

This man meets his gaze with mismatched eyes, expressionless. Lovely, lovely autumn-spring eyes like the surface of an undisturbed lake, flat as his statue-still face. He can feel the beginning tingles of gathering adrenaline, anticipation.

"Hey pretty," he breathes, a crooked grin spreading slowly across his face, "Would you like a ride?"

He watches the slow flutter of dark lashes. When it appears that he will not get a response, he allows his face to fall into a practiced look of concern, "It's late, and someone as young and pretty as you shouldn't be wandering this sort of place at this time. Won't you let me give you a lift to a safer area?"

He endures the dispassionate stare for a moment longer. Just as he begins to consider a more physical method of persuasion, the stranger finally responds.

Wordlessly, the man glides around the front of the car and slides into the front seat. This car is a limited edition vintage with a front bench seat, but he doesn't make any effort to sidle closer. The car doesn't sink under his weight, doesn’t even jerk as he pulls the door shut. The slam of the door is the most solid thing about this shadow of a man. There is something oddly ghostly about him, like he could reach over to find only smoke dissolving out from between his fingers.

But the beautiful stranger smells of rust, cigarette smoke and flowers when he leans over at the next traffic light to mouth along slender hollows at the base of his neck. Something deep, musky, and sweet whispers to him from under the heavy scent, but it is drowned in smell of metal. The man barely responds, tilts his head almost absently to allow for easier access. It is only when the lapel of his coat is grasped that the stranger pushes him away with a contained but surprising strength.

He shrugs and pulls away, continues to drive as the light turns green. The man accepts his reconciliatory offer of a cigarette, smoking it silently as they drive through darkened Tokyo streets. He sees the white paper burn down and the smoke twine out of the open window from the corner of his eye. The flat expression doesn't waver, even as they take a turn down into darker, more secluded streets.

When the cigarette has burnt down to almost nothing, the stranger speaks for the first time.

"Pull over," he says, unnervingly monotone, and stubs the cigarette out.

The driver stops the car under a flickering light, right by the back-door of some questionable establishment. They are still within Kabuki-cho, but it's unusually quiet here, with the walls on either side of them reaching up towards the pitch sky like crooked trees. The granite bricks are strangely uneven, the asphalt road sprawling ahead of them in thin, sharp twists. He doesn’t think he’s ever been to this part of Tokyo. He doesn’t recognise it.

A quiet breath.

The stranger moves like a whisper over the leather of the seat, dark lashes sweeping down over lowered eyes. He wordlessly slides one hand down from shoulder to diaphragm, expanding with a sharp intake of breath— and thrusts his hand up, through the soft underbelly and into the ribcage.

His victim gurgles but doesn't scream. They never do.

Before, he could only imagine the look of absolute terror that would come across a person's face at the moment of their own murder, but such an expression has never graced the faces of any of his victims. The man stares at him, wide-eyed and lips just slightly parted, a look more appropriate to that of vague surprise. The victim is dead before the surprise can fully shift into horror.

The pulse of the still-beating heart around his wrist slows, stops. Still wearing his life's last expression, the man's eyes glaze over. He draws his arm out from the corpse's chest, and the body immediately crumbles into fluttering petals. All that's left of the man's existence is the car and the crimson staining the velvet.

He slips out of the car and sets off into the night, blood splattered down his front and gloving his arm to the elbow.

 

* ** ***** ** *

 

 _Though my soul may set it darkness, it will rise in perfect light;  
_ _I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night._

_\- Sarah Williams (The Old Astronomer to His Pupil)_

  

I. 

Of unresolved cases there are always a fair number, circulating the department until they are eventually archived. Most common of all are the missing persons cases, people gone missing without ever a trace of the body. Only natural, is what most of his colleagues say, every police department in the world is bound to have a number of them. There had been a particularly catastrophic spate of earthquakes three years ago that had had half of Tokyo coming down around their ears. The collapse of the Yamanote line _alone_ had killed thousands of people. Naturally, there had been many missing persons during that period.

The earthquakes have since stopped. The cases coming to light these days are far from natural.

From the highest strata of society, all murdered in strangely similar ways— missing body, a _massacre_ of a crime scene. Blood, always blood, and the cloying scent of flowers. There had been brain matter splattered over a table once, and rib fragments on several memorable occasions.

A rookie on patrol had discovered frozen blood by the harbour last winter, coinciding with the disappearance of a man with suspected _yakuza_ affiliations. Two months ago, a politician’s daughter had come home to a sofa dyed red. Then just a few days ago, the disappearance of a banker facing multiple allegations of rape had made national headlines. At first, the newspapers had scornfully painted it as a desperate flee from justice. Then the man's car had been found in a street right on the edge of Kabuki-cho. A single _sakura_ petal had been plastered to the dried blood on the window, amidst the intestinal tissue splattered against the glass, and the terrible stench of decay. Reporters had been camped on the front step of the office the next morning.

There are already rumors circling around the deaths _._ Man or woman, youth or adult, the witnesses never seem sure. But always, they describe a strikingly slender figure in a black coat, at night, from a distance, slipping silent into the shadows and disappearing in an instant. That’s not very useful to him, as a forensic artist. He can’t draw a composite if witnesses aren’t even clear of the subject’s gender.

He accompanies his supervisor alongside some important people to the Government Building one night. The meeting stretches on forever, but he doesn't mind the overtime because this is a good learning opportunity, as his supervisor would say. The dimly twinkling stars are out by the time they leave the building. It is a cloudless, moonless night. He parts ways from his supervisor, deciding to take a stroll through Shinjuku Central Park before rounding back in time for the last train. He has a little under an hour.

Burying his hands in his coat for refuge against the chilly night air, he tilts his face to the starlight and closes his eyes. The trees envelop him in dark silence, save for the shuffle of the homeless peering out from shelters of blue plastic, the muted sounds of passing traffic. A meditative peace falls over him and he briefly remembers his childhood in tranquil Kyoto, weekends spent contemplating within temple walls at his mother's behest. It is the same peace he feels when he’s painting or drawing.

When he next opens his eyes, he sees the glow of a vending machine display ahead, down a flight of oddly irregular steps. The clink of the coins as he inserts them into the slot rings loud in his ears. He jabs at the lighted button underneath a can of grape juice— _with pulp bits!_

A beat.

The machine issues a series of rhythmic beeps that resonates into the trees, bounces back in a warped echo. In the quiet, it sounds almost like a low, monstrous chuckle.

_Beep… Beep… Beep..._

The clatter of metal follows shortly as it rejects his change.

It is then that he realises that the park is unnaturally silent.

The sounds of human activity, quiet as they were, are absent now. Behind him, the leaves rustle together in a quiet hiss.

For a moment, he only stares at his finger, still pressed against the illuminated button, so hard that the joints and cuticles have turned white. Light shines through the translucent outlines of his fingertips; the more he watches the way the light bleeds through his skin, the more the slow rustling around him begins to sound like a cacophony of unintelligible whispers.

Raspy breathing soon becomes apparent to him, growing louder the longer he listens to it. Just when he thinks he's about to die of fright, still frozen with his finger pressed against the illuminated plastic button, he realises that it is his own panicked breathing, on the verge of hyperventilation. It is coming up before him in puffs.

With a nervous chuckle, he spins on his heel to face the park behind him, scolding himself for his own senseless cowardice.

The path he had just taken stretches through the greenery like wicked winding strokes of ink, shrubs seemingly packed closer to the pavements than before, leaves more black than green. Branches arc over him like clawed, spidery fingers, caging him away from the faraway lights of the Shinjuku high-rises. The stairs before him appear even more irregular than they had been minutes ago, some steps taller than others with edges crumbled and chipped. The previously comforting scratch of his shoes against the tar only adds to the ominous whispers of the trees around him. If he listens closely, he can almost make out voices in the rustling—

He picks up the pace, heading briskly towards the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building looming over the scraggly branches. His footsteps echo as if someone is walking just behind him, growing faster and faster as he hastens. On either side of him, the street-lamps stretch upwards, eerily spindly.

He breaks into a run. The slanted shadows of the lamps seem to elongate, stretching towards him. Ahead of him, his landmark never seems to get any closer. The distance between each street-lamp seems to get further and further, the iron poles taller and taller.

When his foot splashes sickeningly into something sticky on his next step, he knows that something is _seriously, terrifyingly wrong._ Puddles, black in the darkness, stretch out before him in a gruesome trail. He grinds to a horrified halt. Petals begin to fall softly around him like snow, pink darkened to a bloody hue against the muted light of the lamp posts around him. The previously barren trees around him are abruptly gravid with _sakura,_ the heavy scent filling his nostrils even though it is much too early in the year for it.

"You must have quite some spiritual power to have wandered into my _maroboshi_ so unwittingly," comes a whisper, spoken right into his ear.

A scream catches in his throat as he snaps around.

No one’s there.

His breathing is loud and fast in his ears. He turns back slowly— freezes in place.

Ahead stands a willowy man in a long black coat, so tall and slender that he could be easily mistaken for one of the shadows stretching from the iron street-lamps. From this range, the mismatched color of his eyes is immediately clear. Not the usual brown or black, not grey or blue. Only a cat’s-eye gold so intense it cut to the quick, and a deep beetlewing green.

The surreal lights lining the pavement blink off abruptly, one by one in a rapid line, receding away into the distance until there is only the twinkle of lighted windows and faraway stars.

A drawn out honk of a car intrudes into the otherworldly space as if through a dark curtain, distorted like a slowed-down scream. A flash of headlights, passing unnaturally quick. The light casts a passing shadow of the lamp-posts against the floor in sharp relief, and for a split-second there is no color, only strips of black and white. In the middle of it all, only the man retains definition, the stark lines of his face intensely beautiful.

An elongated shadow sweeps over him in a wide arc—

—and he is gone, swallowed back into the darkness.

The lights come back on all at once. The artist finds himself at the very edge of the park, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building looming just ahead. As he scurries away from the clutching shadows of Shinjuku Central Park, it occurs to him that he is probably the only one to have gotten so close to the man and lived. Shaken, he pulls his phone out of his inner coat pocket to call someone, anyone.

The rectangle screen lights up. He freezes.

3AM.

The last train was four hours ago.

He’s been in the park for the last five hours. 

 

* * *

 

 Three hundred miles away, amber eyes snap open.

“Sei-kun,” a sharp rap of knuckles against the wood of the _shoji_ , “ _Sei_ -kun!”

He sits up just as the _shoji_ slides open. It’s a fellow trainee. The boy is in his sleepwear, hair rumpled, eyes wide and worried.

“It’s Sumeragi-sama,” he says, “She wants to see you. She says it’s of _utmost_ urgency.”


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here, I plan to write from the perspective of resurrected/reincarnated!Seishirou. That said, I can't be sure when the next update will be, as my semester is beginning again soon. I _am_ looking forward to writing more for this fic because it's the first time I'm writing happy-ending (?) X fic?

II.

A shadow flits over his face, rousing him sharply from sleep.

All around him, passengers are dozing in their seats. There’s a woman reading in the mid-morning light two rows down from him, a child asleep with his head in her lap. A carriage away, he can hear the muffled rattle of the food trolley coming towards them, the quiet murmur of the service staff manning it.

Another flicker of shadow. He looks out the window in time to see the flyover they had just passed under.

They must be nearing Tokyo Station, judging by all the high-rises and concrete infrastructure they’ve been passing. They’ve long cleared the traditional buildings and golden rice-fields of Kyoto, and the open greenery has since given way to suburbs and then to cityscape and concrete flyovers drenched in orange light. The sky is purpling above, the stars just beginning to twinkle dimly. He takes a moment to appreciate the sight, before he leans back in his seat again, pulling his phone out in case he’s received any instructions from Kyoto.

He keys in the passcode. His phone opens on the last screen he’d been on.

 

* ** ***** ** *

 

Guided by the light of a small electric lamp, he walked briskly down the corridor. His socked feet padded swiftly and silently across the wooden planks, a sleeve raised to stop the light from shining through _shoji_ paper and waking the other trainees. The walls were thin, and the doors far from sound-proof. There was no stopping the quiet groan of wood when he pulled the door to the courtyard aside.

A whisper of sheets. He paused at the door.

The nearest door slid open a crack to reveal a sleepy face.

“Sei-kun?” a fellow trainee murmured blearily, “Where are you going?”

“Sumeragi-sama called for me. Go back to sleep.”

The trainee seemed to wake right up.

“ _Sumeragi-sama?_ ” A jealous look came across the boy’s face, “Called for _you?”_

He did not appreciate the implication.

“Go back to sleep,” he said again, and pulled the door shut behind him.

It was a cloudless and moonless night— quiet, with not even a breeze to rustle the leaves outside. Only offerings of candles flickered in the night, matching the brilliant glitter of the stars. He crossed the garden and entered the main house of the Sumeragi residence.

Sumeragi-sama was waiting in the main parlour of her rooms. Her wheelchair was positioned so that the coffee table, and the steaming cup of tea on it, was within easy reach. She had been staring blankly out of a nearby window with one pale, wrinkled hand laid over the papers in her lap, a wireless landline loosely clutched in the slack fingers of the other.

“Sumeragi-sama,” he murmured, stepping into the room.

Her gaze snapped immediately to him.

“Sit,” she commanded without ceremony, gesturing at the chair opposite her.

He did.

She handed the papers to him. There was a manila folder underneath, which she kept on her lap.

“Do you know who this is?” she asked curtly.

He looked down at the papers. The one on top was a photocopied charcoal sketch of a man’s profile. Below it were drawings of the same man, from different angles. A three-quarter profile from his right, his left, a number of full-body sketches. Then right at the bottom, a full frontal shot. The man was young, and very lovely— black-haired and fine-boned, with a particularly severe case of heterochromia. The dark charcoal strokes of jaw and cheekbones were bold and confident, deft lines speaking of an obvious level of skill. Soulful eyes stared poignantly up at him from the paper, the rendering of them beautifully emotive.

“No,” he said.

She reached out for the papers, and he handed them back to her. He’d left the frontal sketch on top. For a long moment, she said nothing, just looked down at it, tracing a single finger over the young man’s cheek.

“You should feel lucky,” she said finally.

She raised her head to look at him, smiling, but the expression was void of any real warmth.

There had been a strangely dead look in her eyes.

“These are the first portraits that have ever been drawn of a Sakurazukamori.”

 

* ** ***** ** *

 

He closes the photo, but those mismatched eyes linger as if burnt into the back of his irises. They had seemed almost accusing.

“Would you like anything to eat? Anything to drink?”

He looks up. The food trolley has finally reached him, but he is no longer hungry.

“No, thank you.”

The woman smiles and continues down the aisle as he turns his attention back to his phone. He refreshes his inbox.

His phone buzzes. There’s an unread email from the Sumeragi administrative office.

 

* ** ***** ** *

 

“I know you’ve not finished schooling—“

“I’ve just graduated high school,” he corrected her.

“I know that you’ve _barely_ finished schooling,” Sumeragi-sama allowed, “And I don’t usually ask trainees to begin receiving jobs until they are well into their twenties, _especially_ a trainee who’s only been with us for such a short time— _yes,_ I checked your records— but I think you’re ready.”

He felt the beginnings of a wry smile lift his lips. None of the junior instructors or the other trainees had said anything, but he knew he was the most promising _onmyouji_ they had. He knew it unsettled them, how much power he had for a fresh trainee, for a _foundling_. He raised his chin, meeting her eyes proudly as the Sumeragi matriarch arched an eyebrow.

“You’re talented,” she told him frankly, “I haven't seen a Gift so strong in one so young— not since the Thirteenth.”

Her grandson. There had been no body, no funeral; but everyone knew that the Thirteenth had probably died during the terrible earthquakes of 1999. His case had been closed years ago.

The other trainees speculated that Sumeragi-sama was in denial, that she was still hoping against hope that he had lived. The Sumeragi were traditional enough that they still believed portraits were only for the dead, and there weren’t even photographs of him in the house. On the rare occasions that he’d met them, the masters still spoke of him sometimes. _A pity he died,_ they always said, _he was so young, and so very talented._

As if sensing his thoughts, the Twelfth—now the Fourteenth—smiled bitterly. She picked up the manila folder on her lap and handed it to him with the sketches.

“I do not know how dangerous this man is,” she said quietly, sounding as if the admission pained her, “I do not know how dangerous this job will be. Will you take it anyway?”

It was never a question.

“Yes.”

Sumeragi-sama closed her eyes. She nodded once.

“Then you will begin receiving jobs on behalf of the Sumeragi once you’ve settled into Tokyo. The standard contract is in the folder.” She turned to look at the door. There were candles outside, positioned just right to cast a perfect silhouette if anyone was standing in the corridor outside.

Sumeragi-sama leaned closer, voice dropping to barely a whisper.

“But there’s something I need you to do for _me_.”

 

* ** ***** ** *

 

A cheerful music box tune begins to play over the speakers. As it ends, a pleasant female voice comes on.

_‘Ladies and gentlemen, we will arrive at Tokyo terminal in a few minutes. Passengers going to Shinjuku and Tachikara…’_

He tunes the rest of the announcement out as he opens the email. It contains the details of his accommodation, the bank account that had been set up for him, and directions to his apartment from Tokyo station. It also contains a single phone number for his “Tokyo Contact”, and a meeting time and place. There is no name provided with the number.

_‘—Akihabara and Ueno, tracks three and four…’_

He checks the email again just to be sure. Ueno station: that’s his stop.

The train begins to slow.

Around him, there’s a cacophony of movement as people begin to stand and draw their coats on. He has nothing but the clothing on his back and a single black cabin bag, which he retrieves from the overhead compartment when the train has stopped. Everything he’s ever owned over the span of his life, fitted into a single twenty-by-fifteen-inch suitcase.

A service staff bows him out as he steps down onto the platform and follows the signage pointing him to track four, the wheels on his cabin bag clicking quietly over the grooves in the floor. It is small enough that he can carry it easily at his side when he gets to the busier commuter tracks. There, he boards the first train headed toward Ueno. People hurry to find seats, some electing to stand, before the doors close and the train begins to move.

Emerging into the dazzling glitter of Tokyo at night, something in the neon lights— that _skyline,_ the shadows of towering skyscrapers looming large and sudden at the window, the patches of newer paint and concrete over damaged buildings, and the glimmering ripples across Tokyo Bay in the distance, with scaffolding covering the skeleton of a massive bridge— pulls at something deep inside him.

In the blur of cityscape past the windows of the train, he cannot help the inexplicable feeling that this is where he is meant to be, where he was always meant to be.

_’Now arriving at… Ueno.’_

He rises.

The doors open and he is poured out onto the platform amidst the seven o’ clock crowd, like a fish washed onto shore. He stands there as the crowd parts around him and his single black suitcase. All around him, people living their lives in parallel, side by side but never touching. An elderly man in a faded parka sleeps on a bench in the corner, hacking as a suited salaryman trots past him, cellphone pressed to his ear. A child plays with an old stick by the escalators, watched closely by his harried mother. A pair of well-dressed teenagers with shopping bags over their arms head past them, giggling and comparing their purchases.

Someone bumps into him from behind.

He staggers forward, knocks shoulders jarringly with a woman pushing a pram.

“I’m sorry. Excuse me,” he apologises.

A glimpse of gold and green as the stranger passes him—

He snaps around.

There’s a man standing one platform over. He is paper-pale and dressed in black from head to toe. Dark hair falls into mismatched eyes, his face as still as ivory as he gazes expressionlessly down the track.

A train comes between them.

When it passes, the man is gone.

 

* * *

 

His one-room apartment is too big for the number of possessions he actually has. That’s no surprise, considering that his room in the trainee quarters had only just fitted a single futon and a small dresser. The _bathroom_ in this apartment is bigger than his old room. There’s even a small balcony connected to his bed room, and a double bed.

He is done unpacking in twenty minutes flat. After that, he has barely until morning to settle in. An email comes in at six. His first appointment is right after lunch, a simple ritual cleansing for a couple who have just moved into a new home. He has a minor exorcism scheduled in the evening, then an appointment the morning after with an old lady complaining that something in the house has been disturbing her cats. His meeting with “Tokyo Contact” is scheduled for lunch the next day, before an informal cleansing at Meiji Shrine.

He knows that Meiji has been asking for a Sumeragi for months. Back when the Thirteenth had been based out of Tokyo, it had been a lot easier meeting the increasing inflow of jobs coming from Tokyo. The number of calls from Tokyo had only grown in the years leading up to the new millennium, and _exploded_ after the earthquakes of 1999. It’s not easy being based out of Kyoto, but the Sumeragi has resided in the “traditional capital” for centuries. Moving to Tokyo is _unthinkable,_ a _slight_ to the dignity of the Sumeragi.

Well.

He’s not about to tell Sumeragi-sama what _he_ thinks about that.

Two days later, he finds himself at the meeting place he’d been given in the first email. The address is of a small cafe, a few streets down from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department headquarters. Mr. “Tokyo Contact” is a young man with thick, rimmed glasses. His eye-bags have eye-bags.

“Sumeragi,” he introduces himself, with a firm handshake, “And you are…?”

Mr. Tokyo Contact squirms, offering a sheepish smile.

“Ah. I’m sure you’ll understand my hesitation, knowing the nature of the man we’re discussing.”

He shrugs and takes a seat. If this man is trying to maintain anonymity, he isn’t doing a very good job of it. There’s an employee access card sticking out of his breast pocket under his coat. He can see the edges of the TMPD’s crest on it. He also knows from the sketches that this man can draw, incredibly well, based only off the split-second memory of a man he’d seen in the dark, at night, while terrified out of his wits. This is something he does for a living.

Mr. Probably-A-Forensic-Artist settles into the chair opposite him as he takes out a pen and a notepad.

“Can you tell me about your encounter with the subject?”

A vaguely discomfited look.

“Ah. Well you see, I was working late at the Government Building—“ Another point down on anonymity “—and had decided to take a walk through Shinjuku Central Park before heading home. It was fine at first, but I gradually noticed… _irregularities_ … in the landscape.”

“What kind of irregularities?”

Mr. Tokyo Contact shrugs.

“The path of the pavements had changed, the trees looked a little strange— more craggy and sinister, taller. The cobblestone seemed more worn. The more I walked, the further away the skyline seemed to get. It was like the road was stretching out before me.” He shudders. “Then suddenly, there was blood on the floor, _sakura_ in the air, in the trees by the pavements— and _he_ was just standing there, in the shadow of a lamp post.”

He jots that down dutifully.

“Did he say anything?” he asks, absently tapping the end of his pen against the paper.

_"You must have quite some spiritual power to have wandered into my maroboshi so unwittingly.”_

He pauses in his tapping.

“Do you?”

Mr. Tokyo Contact frowns, looking confused.

“Do I what?”

“Have any spiritual abilities,” he clarifies.

Mr. Tokyo Contact shakes his head.

“No… But I used to meditate a lot in my youth. My mother would send me to the Sumeragi estate every weekend.” A chuckle. “Perhaps we even played together as children.”

He smiles a wry smile.

“Highly unlikely.”

He continues tapping his pen against his notepad as he thinks. Finally, he arrives at a decision and sets his pen down on the table.

“Here’s what I’m going to do,” he tells the man, “With your permission, I’m going to examine your aura and try to find any magical signatures from there. I can use that to track the man we’re looking for.”

“ _Track_ him?!” Mr. Tokyo Contact sounds alarmed, “I just wanted some protection in case he came back to finish the job!”

… That _was_ what Sumeragi-sama had said he wanted. Time for damage control.

“The Sumeragi family has a vested interest in keeping tabs on this man. We work interdependently, you see, but we try our best not to cross trajectories while working on our cases. Being able to track him would go a long way to helping us achieve that.” He adopts a slightly warmer tone, “Please rest assured, you will have adequate protection and no harm will befall you from this. After I’ve identified his magical signature, I will remove it entirely from your person. Practiced _onmyouji_ often track people they’ve met before using the traces of magical signature they inevitably leave behind. He will not be able to do this after I’ve cleansed your aura.”

The man looks mollified, though still slightly anxious, “I— Well, if you put it that way… What do you need me to do?”

“You said that you have practiced in the discipline of meditation, so, if you will…”

Mr. Tokyo Contact closes his eyes, breathing evening out.

He takes a couple minutes to strengthen the mental shields he had been meticulously building since that fateful encounter at Ueno station. Any one person is likely to have a melting pot of magical signatures on them. But with the recency of the incident and the strength of the _onmyouji_ in question, he’s sure he can easily isolate the signature he’s looking for. It’s a pretty straightforward procedure. The only danger is that an _onmyouji_ powerful enough would be able to detect his interference and identify his signature— which is what the shields are for.

He definitely does not want to be on the Sakurazukamori’s radar.

When he’s confident enough of his wards, he reaches out with a tendril of thought. He is vaguely surprised to find the client’s spiritual presence resonating already. _You must have quite some spiritual power to have wandered into my maroboshi so unwittingly._ He gains a new understanding of the Sakurazukamori’s casual observation.

Speaking of which…

There’s a lingering trace of magic on the man’s aura.

He reaches carefully toward it with his own magic, and becomes aware of a dulled magical presence residing somewhere on the opposite end of central Tokyo. Two layers of shielding separate them. One meticulously constructed and buzzing faintly (his), and the other pulsing mutedly from across the city _(his)._

It’s a strange feeling— like currents from the movement of two great sea-serpents, brushing up against each other through a layer of plastic. The initial tone of it is stifled, as it should be, but still strong enough to be identifiable. He reaches for that magical signature again to confirm its texture, the rusty scent of an ancient blood magic—

But there’s _another layer beneath it._

A split-second’s impression of old parchment, fresh grass, incense— and a deep, violent wound that smells cloyingly like rotting flowers. It is so vivid that he realises, too late, that he’s somehow slipped right through his own shields, through the _other’s_ shields like a hot knife through butter, inexplicably, _impossibly_ —

An old spell rebounds. A long dormant magic stirs, strangely sentient— _latches_ onto him—

And _burns,_ all the way in.

He feels, almost as if in slow-motion, his shields _break._

The _sakanagi_ hits. The floor rushes up to meet him.

Right before everything goes black, he senses—from across the city— the Sakurazukamori’s wards beginning to fall.

 

* * *

 

He wakes to pandemonium.

There are people running about, yelling, and blurry figures standing over him. There are disembodied hands all over him, someone loosening the collar of his shirt as panicked voices talk over one another. The voices meld into an unintelligible roar of sound, overwhelming. Irritated, he brushes the unwanted hands away and sits up.

A sharp pain. His vision doubles for a strange and abrupt moment.

He claps a hand over his eyes, clenching them tightly shut, and the headache slowly subsides. When he opens his eyes again, he catches a glimpse of broken glass on the floor, hears the tinkle of glass shards being swiftly swept up by a staff member. Mr. Tokyo Contact is kneeling beside him, wide-eyed and stammering nonsense. The customers who had been seated by the door are on their feet, looking over at them with concern.

Judging from everyone’s reactions, it seems like he had only been out for a moment. Already, the commotion is dying down as people begin to realise that he is awake and apparently alright. He waves off a concerned waitress as she comes to him with a glass of water.

“Low-blood sugar,” he lies easily, “I’m fine now.”

Someone helps him into his seat. The waitress returns with a mug of hot chocolate.

He disperses the crowd with a few more lies and a smile, before turning back to his client. Time for _more_ damage control. The man is sitting opposite him with a haunted expression, white-lipped and pale-faced. His legs are visibly trembling. He reaches out mentally toward the man, searching for a now familiar magical signature.

It has gone completely from the man’s aura.

He exhales slowly.

“Excuse me for that,” he says, as casually as he can, “I underestimated the _sakanagi_ of removing such a strong magical signature from your aura. It is, of course, completely gone now. That I can assure you. I’m sorry to have worried you.”

The man sags visibly into his chair.

“Oh, thank _god._ ”

“Payment to the Sumeragi estate should be made in a cheque to the following account,” he continues, writing the bank account number on the back of a business card, before flipping it over again, “And my number is here in case anything else arises that you require my help for. Thank you for your patience.”

Mr. Tokyo Contact slips the card into his wallet. An elated smile is beginning to spread across the man’s face.

“I— Thank you. _Thank you._ ”

When the man has left, he leans back in his seat, gently massaging the bridge of his nose.

Well.

That’s Mr. Tokyo Contact’s problems solved.

He looks out of the window. The beginnings of a storm is brewing over the high-rises of Central Tokyo.

There’s a moment where his vision doubles again, a split-second where he can see those same storm clouds, but strangely different— as if seen from a different angle. He blinks, hard, and the duplicity is gone. Steam rises slowly from the mug of hot chocolate on the table in front of him.

He can’t help the feeling that his own problems are just beginning.


End file.
